


Family is Hard, but You Make Time for What's Important

by Eirenne Saijima (ladypoetess)



Category: Leverage, The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Brothers, Crossover, Family, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 20:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8938228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladypoetess/pseuds/Eirenne%20Saijima
Summary: They both left home as soon as they could, and from there their lives diverged beyond imagining. So what happens when two brothers who have each found their own families in the world manage to reconnect?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnarchyAnagrams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnarchyAnagrams/gifts).



> Grateful thanks to [kalypsobean](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean) and [ardentaislinn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentaislinn) for their beta comments!

"Where's your Clippings Book sending you, Jake?" Cassandra sounded distracted as she read her own Book.

Jake sounded far away when he responded, "Looks like I'm headed west this time."

"West? Like, L.A.? You wouldn't want to trade, would you mate?" Ezekiel, immediately interested, looked up from his Clippings Book and flashed that grin of his. "Mine wants me to go to somewhere in the middle of Wyoming, a town that almost certainly offers me no forms of personal enrichment."

"Opportunities for lucrative theft, you mean." Eve's voice was dry as she continued reading whatever book was on her desk this week. "If Stone is the one being sent to L.A. or wherever it is, then he's the one the Library thinks should go."

Before Ezekiel could finish opening his mouth, Eve held up a finger to silence him. "No buts, Jones. The Library sends the one it thinks is best."

Amid grumbling and general grouching, Ezekiel wandered off to get whatever he was likely to need for the trip and to tell Jenkins where he needed a door to. Eve returned to her reading, and Jake just sat staring at the clippings in his Book. He almost failed to notice when Cassie slipped up beside him.

"So, L.A., huh? That should be interesting; lots of neat art in L.A." Her sweet smile was almost enough to disarm him, but Jake held tight to his surety in the world and just smiled back slightly.

"It's not L.A., actually."

"I thought you said--"

"No, Jones jumped to conclusions, as usual. I just said I was headed west."

"Then where?" Cassie sounded so genuinely curious that Jake answered her.

"Portland."

###

"Dammit, Hardison."

"Damn-- what'd I do this time?" Alec Hardison's voice was the very sound of wounded dignity.

"I think you ate his sandwich. You know how he hates that." Parker sounded positively gleeful. She got entirely too much pleasure out of watching her tiny angry man be tiny and angry at their smooth-talking geek, even in the middle of a job like this.

"He can make another damn sandwich, that's part of why we own a brewpub!"

"It's not the sandwich, though I'm not happy about that either, man." Eliot's voice was its usual grumpy timbre over the comms, but there was a preoccupation in it that wasn't usually there these days. "I thought your little internet gizmos would tell you before someone named Jacob Stone came to Portland."

"Yeah? And they will-- oh, he's coming to Portland. Or, rather, he's here in Portland. I have no idea how he got here, but he's here." Hardison sounded offended that his computers had let him down and Eliot and Parker could hear the furious sound of keys clicking as he worked to find the place this Stone guy had slipped through.

"He's over at that little seafood bar by the water, apparently eating alone. Huh, that’s not far from you. Do you want me to track him?"

After a moment silence, Hardison tried again, "Eliot? Eliot, do you want me to track his movements?"

"It's no use Alec, he's taken off comms and he's gone."

“What? Are you two done out there or what?” Hardison was confused, but Parker didn’t sound upset, just maybe a little annoyed, so he’d roll with it. “Is the job done?”

“Eh, I can finish up the loose ends.” Parker’s shrug was almost audible in her voice.

"Then so long as he comes back when he's done playing with this friend of his, I don’t care where he's gone to."

###

"So this is why we don't see you anymore; impressive."

Jake's mouth quirked in a smile before he lifted his head and turned to regard the man who'd spoken from behind him. "You're one to talk; you haven't been back home since you joined the service, and no one has any real idea how to find you."

"You did."

"Well, yeah, I guess I did at that." Jake nodded once. "Kinda figured you didn't want bothered."

"So why are you here, Jake?"

"Work."

"Work, huh? What kind of work these days? Haven't heard about any oil rigs near Portland." The other man hadn't moved to sit down, hadn't shifted his stance, and didn't seem any more or less tense than when he'd first arrived, but Jake knew better than to take his apparent ease for granted.

"Not that kind of work anymore. I'm doing some stuff that's more..." Jake paused, searching out the right word. "Academic, these days."

"Still doing the art thing, then?"

"Some of it is that, but there's more to it, what I'm doing." Jake's lips twitched into an involuntary smile as he thought of the things he'd learned since teaming up with Cassie and Jones. "I don't work alone anymore, and the others around me teach me a lot that they don't even realize."

Jake's eyes widened in astonishment as the other man started laughing, grabbed a chair and spun it around to straddle it backwards, then leaned on the back and grinned at him. "Little brother, have I got some stories for you."

"Pfft, 'little' my ass. You were born like 6 minutes before me, Eliot." Jake couldn't help but grin back at his brother.

"Still counts."

"Fine, whatever." Jake waved away the argument. "What stories have you got?"

"I'm not working alone anymore, either. I started running with some different people; the best thief I've ever known, and a hacker who is the smartest man I've ever known --’cept maybe you, of course."  Eliot's eyes softened as he talked about these nameless people --Jake wondered if he looked like that when he talked about Ezekiel and Cassie and Eve. "A couple others for awhile there, but they've moved on now. Now it's the three of us in a brewpub in Portland, saving the world every week."

"And twice before Friday," Jake murmured to himself.

"What was that?" Eliot cocked his head in question.

"Nothing, nothing." Jake gestured for him to continue.

"I make the menus and cook the food for the pub, Hardison does the public stuff and the computer stuff, and Parker handles the money, and we just... we help people." Eliot trailed off, clearly having more to say but just as clearly reluctant to come right out with it.

"Sounds like this is a good place for you."

"Yeah, yeah... Things are good here." Eliot had a brief, contented smile flash across his face before he looked up again. "So what about you? Still writing as Oliver Thomas?"

Jake's small smile was almost a mirror of the one he'd just seen on Eliot's face, he was sure. "Writing under my own name these days, actually. The people I'm, ah... running with have been encouraging me on that score."

“Hey, whatever makes you happy, man.” Eliot shook his head once. “I ain’t one to lecture on hiding behind other identities.”

There were a few beats of silence as the two men sat in thought, then Jake saw Eliot's shoulders tense, his eyes hood a bit more, just enough of a change for Jake and probably no one else to see that Eliot was uneasy about something.

"Listen, you gonna be in town long?" Eliot’s voice betrayed none of the unease Jake could see in his posture.

"As long as this work assignment takes, I suppose. Why?"

"I thought, maybe, if you want, you could come back with me, meet the... others." Eliot furrowed his brow, as if not quite sure those were the words he’d wanted to say. "You know, if you have time."

Grinning, Jake stood and gathered his things before clapping Eliot on the shoulder. "You make time for what's important. I'd love to meet your family, man."

Maybe later, he'd even tell his brother about the family he'd found, as well.


End file.
